As a new user, there comes a time (or there will come a time) when you are playing around with Ubuntu/Gnome, trying different themes, different engines, different window managers, etc, and all of a sudden you run into a problem that you can’t seem to find a way to fix it.
Maybe some of your customized settings are causing your gnome-panel to crash all the time or causing your windows and applications to look ugly, even having window buttons (close, minimize) disappear. You start Googling and spending a lot of time – sometimes days – trying to find how you can fix it.
You are frustrated (sometimes hitting your monitor/tower yelling some vulgarities at it as if it understands and you will kill it if it doesn’t fix it… there’s no Valentine’s love there, that’s for sure) and are ready to go back to Microsoft Windows.
But wait!
You keep thinking, “I wish I could just reset it back to its defaults, like a clean install, without losing all my applications and data.”
Well, you’re in luck. There is a way to reset your Desktop settings back to their defaults. If you keep in mind that everything in Linux is a file, all of its settings are files. All of Gnome’s customizations are located in their own specific folders. And these settings are user specific; they are in your Home folder. If you would create another user and log in with that user, you wouldn’t have any of the problems you are having in your own account. If you remove all these folders, you essentially remove all the settings. Therefore, we will remove the folders needed to reset Ubuntu/Gnome back to its defaults.
UPDATE (2008.01.30): Keep in mind that this will only reset your Gnome-specific settings. If you are having problems with your video card, display, x-server, etc., this WILL NOT fix your problems.
If you don’t have access to your graphical (GUI) desktop to delete these folders in Nautilus or you’re stuck at the login screen, drop to a terminal by hitting CTRL + ALT + F1, login to your account, and run this command:
rm -rf .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity
Get back to your GUI desktop by hitting CTRL + ALT + F7.
Login and VOILÀ! Just like the first time you ever logged into your Gnome desktop.
You know, I was playing around with Compiz etc, and killed off my Gnome Desktop. I have learned to keep a second Desktop around IE KDE or XFCE, just in case I blow things up. As I’ve done it before, and I think that I’ve used this page two or three times to reference how to get things back to normal. Maybe once I have more then 2 years of Linux experience I’ll quit blowing up my desktop….. NAH….
Sorry Doug, I have not come across the issue you have described.
Following the steps below, do you get the same issue with a new account?
System->Adminstration->Users and Group
select “unlock”
select “Add User”
then logout and login with the new user credential.
hey, instead of simply removing the settings I suggest to at least having a backup of all these data. you know, ‘not-so-good’ is much better than ‘i-must-reinstall’
[...] Only two hick-ups so far. The first, compiz boogered up on my leaving my Panels (or menu bars as some call them) not displaying properly. I finally had to reset them back to square one. Which is really easy to do, thanks to this post: How to Reset Ubuntu/Gnome Settings to Defaults without Re-installing. [...]
Thanks a million for this, I just had a problem with configuration files and tried it, it saved the situation ! I just need to re-install the themes, but that is a real relief !
Thanks for the trick, man !
Thanks, this was very helpful. On my NetBSD system, I also had to remove .nautilus to fully reset the default gnome desktop configuration.
Thanks! I almost tore out my last hair!
Thanks a lot!! My battery and network manager icons disappeared from the panel on my laptop. This fixed it.
Thank you so much, you saved my system
Now it’s time for me to look at that rm command…
Thank You Very Much Brother,, You helped me a lot.. i hope you will share us more information related to ubuntu fixing problems.. keep up on your good work..
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